ANAHEIM, CA--(Marketwire - Oct 4, 2011) - STARWEST - SOASTA, the leader in cloud-based performance testing, today announced that it has added Selenium-based functional testing capabilities to its award-winning SOASTA CloudTest Platform. SOASTA's new functional testing solution -- available in all CloudTest editions, including its free CloudTest Lite -- extends the popular open source Selenium testing tool with more accurate test recording, a visual test creation environment, distributed test execution, and powerful analytics. Designed for testing modern, browser-based Web apps built with technologies such as HTML5 and easily integrated into continuous integration servers such as Hudson and Jenkins, SOASTA's functional testing solution enables both quality assurance (QA) and software development teams to execute more accurate tests with unparalleled speed and agility -- without programming.

The SOASTA CloudTest Platform is the world's largest platform for testing the performance of Web and mobile applications at scale and is renowned for its innovative visual testing environment. In SOASTA's functional testing solution, this patented visual test creation environment records all browser events at the DOM (Document Object Model) level and offers multiple object locators to create more accurate and stable functional tests. It also includes a complete visual programming language that eliminates the need for any coding or scripting, even for complex tests.

"We are proud to formally announce our Selenium-based functional testing capabilities as part of the SOASTA CloudTest platform, which developers and testers can now use to conduct both functional and performance tests," said Tom Lounibos, SOASTA's CEO. "By extending the open source Selenium testing tool with SOASTA's unique visual interface, we are delivering a first: a platform that both software developers and non-programmers can use to build and execute complex functional tests."

SOASTA's functional testing solution is designed for testing modern, browser-based Web apps and Web services. It supports technologies such as HTML5, Ajax, Flash/Flex and Silverlight, as well as SOAP and REST Web services.

"Teams that automate with Selenium run into framework and maintenance problems, and run into them in a hurry," said Matt Heusser, contributing editor at STPCollaborative and lead editor of the new anthology, 'How to Reduce the Cost of Software Testing.' "SOASTA is the first of a new breed of Selenium-based solutions that have the potential to solve those problems out of the box." He goes on to add that, "Because they built the performance capabilities first, the entire system is designed to work together."

Fast and easy test creation. Instead of coding in Java, Python, C++, C# or other languages, users record tests directly in the browser and then edit them in a visual test creation environment.

More accurate representation of user behavior. CloudTest's recording agent captures all individual browser action events at the DOM level for more accurate test playback through any browser on any platform -- Mac, Windows, or Linux.

Robust visual programming model. The visual editing environment supports iteration, nesting, looping, and conditionals for building complex tests. A rich set of test validations, location strategies and other components can be extended with custom JavaScript.

Support for agile development and testing. Functional tests, distributed test execution, and detailed test results can easily be incorporated into continuous test integration frameworks like Hudson and Jenkins.

A single test platform. With CloudTest, using the same visual test creation environment, the same automated cloud-based deployment, and the same real-time and highly scalable analytics, users can execute functional tests and load and performance tests at any scale.

"SOASTA CloudTest truly integrates the realms of functional and performance testing," stated Doron Reuveni, CEO of uTest. "That means one user interface and methodology for developers and testers to learn, and a single platform to manage. By incorporating performance testing into the development process, new apps can be designed for high performance from the start."

SOASTA is hosting a webinar called, "SOASTA's New Functional Testing Capabilities" on Tuesday, October 11 from 10am-11am PT, in which SOASTA's CEO Tom Lounibos and Vice President of Engineering Tal Broda will walk through the new functional testing capabilities. For more information or to register, please go to https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/639817024.